Here are links to Daily Posts from the archives (May 12-16) in case you missed them, and articles, old and new, from around the internet. My aim is not to give you up to the minute news, but a historical understanding of our current times—too many people see everything going on as uniquely special to the current moment. You can follow me on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook (I am not accepting new friends on the last platform, but you can use the “follow” option).
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Hello, hello! Are you feeling the heat from the Maw of Hell yet? Hard week here, but I suspect that is true for everyone. Chicago literally felt the heat: we shot up to 80 degrees and are feeling the after-effects of storms.
I indicated last time that there would be no new work this week, and so it is. There is new work coming next week, including something titled, “Money, Money, Money.” You can guess what that is about. There is some intense end-of-winter work going on here, and I have had to focus my energy on that. But, onwards:
FROM THE ARCHIVES!
Here’s my review of The Feminist Utopia Project, “The Feminist Utopia Project Isn’t Utopian Just Yet.”
“Support Your Media Or Watch It Die.” Seriously: support the media you want to see thrive and survive. Stop supporting places that don’t pay or pay very little (looking at you, Los Angeles Review of Books, Byline, and n+1, among others). And for the love of all kitties, stop “unpaywalling” articles because you think you’re “liberating” material for your friends. I will have an essay next week on why unpaywalling is one of the dumbest and most counterproductive things you can do. There is no “resistance” without a dynamic press, and that means writers need to be paid fairly and well. So pay up, buttercup. Writing is labour, not a hobby.
Because everyone needs reminding, here, again, is “Trump, Immigration, and the Failure of the Left.”
Here is my review of Christopher Lane’s Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness.
It’s only a week old, but I’m going to keep reminding you to read “What Are We Defending?”
Also a week old, but I had a lot of fun writing it and I want to make sure you saw it: “Who’s Left: A Taxonomy of Sorts.”
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ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB!
HBO Max is going to call itself HBO Max. Again. In case you missed it, the streamer had tried, unsuccessfully, to go by “Max.” Nobody knew why, least of all the corporation itself. I’m guessing some underpaid 20-year-old social media influencer/consultant told them it would be the hip thing to do. When they shifted to “Max,” I started calling it “The Boyfriend Channel,” because it sounded so intimate: “What’s on Max?” “Did you enjoy Max last night?”
It’s like calling NBC “Ned.” Or ABC “Al.”
But here we are, and it’s the nineties all over again, with “HBO Max.” Until they change it again.
The Trump jet is in the news. Here are the details about the “palace in the sky.”
Hillary Clinton, who still harbours delusions of something approaching relevance, snarked about it:
So here is a 2016 reminder, from Zaid Jilani in The Intercept, that she and her husband profited mightily from their tenure in politics: “Hillary Clinton Made More in 12 Speeches to Big Banks Than Most of Us Earn in a Lifetime.”
David Hogg is still pretending to be the radical, new change among Dems. Given its geriatric cast and that its most prominent “radicals” like AOC and Bernie Sanders still don’t get why Kamala Harris lost, and still won’t mention the g-word, this may be sadly true. But I will remind you, again, that Hogg is no change at all, as I pointed out in “What Is the Point of Politics Without Ideology?”
A poll finds that “Democrats Are Deeply Pessimistic about the Future of Their Party.” They should be.
Displaying the kind of courage no Democrat politician has shown so far, Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, was arrested at a pro-Gaza protest. I will be getting my usual pint of their Cookie Dough ice cream.
The Episcopal Church says it will not help resettle the white South Africans who were granted refugee status, which is excellent news.
In Current Affairs, Joe Walsh points out that “South Africa’s ‘White Genocide’ Is a Lie.”
Excellent news also on the publishing front: In These Times has entered into an “Agreement Around Freelance Contributors” with the National Writers Union.
When I moved to Chicago, the Chicago Reader was how I found my way around the city, and Michael Miner was part of the media landscape. He died recently, and it’s a huge loss.
Chicago was once a city that bristled with newspapers. This Windy City Times article by Lu Calzada is a history of En La Vida, a queer Latino community paper.
Block Club Chicago is suing ICE over immigration arrest records.
Adam Johnson points out in In These Times (a Chicago publication!), that “Mainstream Media’s Anti-Palestinian Double Standard Is On Full Display.”
Here’s an important bit of immigration news that has not been covered widely, and I suspect that’s because it does not reflect well on the Biden-Harris administration: “District Court Strikes Down Restrictions in Biden-Era Rule Severely Limiting Asylum.”
But then this happened just now: “Trump suspends asylum system, leaving immigrants to face an uncertain future.” (Updated after this was first published, May 16.)
Keir Starmer (Evil Dilbert, as I like to call him), came out with a White Paper on immigration that essentially echoed Enoch Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood” speech. You can read more about that here.
Disability advocates in the UK and the U.S are pointing out that cuts to healthcare — always designed to harm the most vulnerable — are especially discriminatory towards people with disabilities. Ed Kiely’s London Review of Books essay on John Pring’s The Department is a devastating history of the problem.
In the U.S, Medicaid cuts would mean work requirements for people on disability, and the ACLU points out how harmful these can be.
Tuesday, May 13 was the 40th anniversary of the Philadelphia MOVE bombing.
We’ve all known this for a while, but here is proof that “Most Americans don’t earn enough to afford basic costs of living.”
You know that quintessential scene in the movies, of a prisoner being released and getting on a bus back to freedom? It turns out that most prisons couldn’t be bothered to ensure the safety of their former inmates, who must often trudge towards cities and towns on the sides of highways. (This should show up as a gift link; let me know if it doesn’t).
Why, yes, The Lancet does in fact say that Covid can have worsening effects on people with cancer. But don’t tell that to the vast majority of nurses and doctors, who are still refusing to mask up.
And here’s the actor Jeff Bridges, revealing that while he’s doing well after his cancer diagnosis, the Covid he may have caught during his hospital stay has left him with lingering effects, like memory issues. Certainly, it might be hard to disentangle Covid from cancer in this case, but we cannot doubt that the virus has complicated matters.
A Yellowstone Park bison gored a man who got too close. (The human is fine and, more importantly, so is the bison.) Bisons can weigh 2000 pounds and stand as tall as six feet. You have to be deeply drunk or deeply stupid to think that you can get close to one and not suffer some consequences.
I will have more later on how British and American views on immigration are almost the same: both of the parties in power seem determined to create a large class of migrants who will be allowed in only to do “the work that no one else will do,” but never allowed residency or citizenship. I could go on, but I will leave it to Succession’s Logan Roy, of all people, to explain what this really means.
And here’s the inimitable John Cale, singing about Enoch Powell in “Graham Greene,” from the brilliant Paris 1919.
Rest up, dearies. I am wrung out and exhausted, but will see you next week.
You can find previous Updates here.
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Image: Notre-Dame, Henri Matisse. 1914.
